We brought home our new black cat, Kikyo, in July of 2010.  It didn’t take her very long to settle in, with her new Staff to cater to her every whim.  We bought her a tall cat tree, so she could climb up and watch out the clerestory window in the family room.  We bought her a “toy box” to hold all her many cat toys.  It’s basically a square wooden box about a foot square and two inches deep, with round holes in the top and sides.  If she wants to play with a toy, she has to fish it out of the box first.  We also sometimes put treats in the box, so she has to fish those out too.  She does have fun with it.  Often when I get home from work, her toys are strewn across the family room floor where she left them.

We installed a window perch in our second-floor bedroom, so she can watch out the window into the back yard.  She spends hours there, sleeping or watching out the window.  Here, then, are ten years of pictures of our Owner, The Lady Kikyo (named after a priestess in Medieval Japan, a character in the anime series InuYasha).

This is the first picture I took of her when we brought her home.  Notice the collar and tag.  Being an indoor cat, we removed the collar after about a week.

Here she is in what I like to call her “legless position”.  Some people call it the “meatloaf” position.

We discovered that she could be quite the little acrobat. How about this balancing act?

Here she is on that tall cat-tree.  She can scamper up there in a split-second when there’s a bird in the maple tree outside the window.

How could you resist this face?

Kikyo discovered fairly early on that she could jump up on the banister of our stairs to the second floor, and jump across to the top of the front closet.  From there she saunters over to the plant shelf.  One day, I caught her sitting on the shelf, snuggled up to a vase in the shape of a cat.  Of course, she had no idea that she was next to another cat!

My favorite place to be is on my bed, with a good book or the Wall Street Journal to read.  Kikyo’s favorite place to be is on me.  When we brought her home from the shelter, she wasn’t much for sitting on people.  But I taught her well.

Now, is that relaxed, or what?!

Anyone who is owned by a cat has seen their owner in this particularly hilarious pose.  I can’t believe she can actually do this-it’s embarrassing to me! Most undignified!

I brought home a little free bag from my oral surgeon, and for some reason Kikyo likes to sit on it.  If I leave it on the bed, she prefers to be on top of it.

She also has a low cat tree, that sits in the kitchen next to the table.  This particular pose made a great Christmas card in 2015, with the addition of a Santa hat.  This is also the picture on the lock screen of my phone.

 

Then, there’s her Aristo-Cat pose.  This picture is priceless.  She sat in this position for a good ten minutes, watching a bird out the window.

When she’s on her window perch, she just looks so relaxed and lazy.  Mistress of all she surveys.

This one is more recent.  The look says: “You rang, underling?”.

There is Nothing like being owned by a cat.  We got an especially lovely one, with a coat like mink.